1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a picture recording apparatus and, more particularly, to an apparatus for producing a hard copy of a picture as represented by video signals which are formed by an electronic still camera, a television (TV) camera and other image pickup devices.
2. Description of the Prior Art
There is an increasing demand for an implementation to visualize various kinds of color video signals and produce hard copies of pictures which are represented by the video signals. In this connection, an achievement in the realm of imaging art is an electronic still camera which allows a hard copy of a picture to be produced easily and conveniently. Specifically, an electronic still camera uses a solid-state imaging device, an imaging tube or like image pickup device in combination with a recording device of the type using a magnetic disk which is an inexpensive and relatively large-capacity recording medium. The camera picks up an object purely electronically as a still picture and records video signals representative of the picture in the magnetic disk. The disk applicable to such a camera may be dimensioned as small as about 50 millimeters in diameter and rotated at a constant speed of 3,600 rotations per minute, so that video signals are recorded on a field basis or a frame basis in the disk.
An electronic still camera adapted for color image pickup generally includes a color separating filter which is located ahead of a photosensitive cell array of an imaging device of the camera. Light incident from an object to the filter is separated according to pixel-by-pixel separating colors, the resultant color components being incident to their associated photosensitive cells. Various kinds of color filters are extensively used. Predominant filters designed for a family of primary colors are those which separate incident light to a red (R), a green (G) and a blue (B) components while predominant filters designed for a family of complementary colors are those which separate a cyan (Cy), a magenta (M) and a yellow (Ye) components or a white (W) and the Ye, G and Cy components.
For the above reason, pictures picked up by a color electronic still camera are recorded in the form of video signals in various tones depending upon the kind of the camera used. Specifically, pictures reproduced from video signals recorded differ delicately from each other in color reproducibility depending upon the kind of a color separating filter.
For example, a color separating filter, or color filter, adapted for primary colors is excellent in color separation but short in brightness. Conversely, a color filter adapted for complementary colors is sufficient in brightness but short in sharpness. It follows that where video signals are reproduced by a playback apparatus from a magnetic disk in which pictures picked up through a complementary color filter are stored while maintaining in the playback apparatus image processing parameters suitable for the reproduction of video signals out of a magnetic disk in which pictures picked up through a primary color filter are stored, it is impossible to achieve adequate color reproducibility.
Therefore, in order that a picture may be reproduced as naturally to the eyes as an actual scene, it is necessary for the colors to be compensated or converted in compliance with, for example, the kind of a color filter which was used to pick up the picture. Such implies that where a picture represented by video signals is to be turned into a hard copy, i.e., print, it is the prerequisite to subject a video signal to color correction.
Color correction as mentioned above is indispensable not only to video signals recorded in a magnetic video disk, or so-called video floppy, by an electronic still camera but also to those video signals which are available from various kinds of sources, in the event of producing a hard copy from the video signals. Specific examples of the video signals other than those stored in a video disk are TV signals in an ordinary format, i.e., video signals generated by a TV camera with an imaging tube or a solid-state imaging device with or without the intermediary of a magnetic disk, a video tape and other recording media, and TV signals received from communication media such as broadcasting.